The Song

2003 5th-6th Grade Poetry Winner

Last Friday, just before the sun-rise, somebody woke me up.
It was a nightingale.
From the depth of the cement narrow yard, from the cleft between two pre-war buildings,
from the cell where sun rays never reach, he was singing!
His song was rising above the towers and trees and reaching my window.
Echo was following.
It was a miracle.
In the middle of a distant war, when you wake up
to the sounds of fighters overhead,
the least of what you expect is the song of a nightingale.

I got out of my bed.
Looked out of the window.
The yard was still dark.
I could not see the bird.

But all of a sudden
I saw a silhouette in the yellow window across the yard
and then another one...

People whom I never met before, my tired neighbors,
New Yorkers torn between two families and three jobs,
woke up, like me...

The song of the Manhattan nightingale brought them together.
It made them look at each other...

In the days,
When fighters cut Manhattan sky like razors, to make the city feel safer,
When breaking news blow up the spring air
To let us bear bombs and missiles explode,
When the sirens sound round-o-clock, being the main instrument of the city's orchestra,

Somebody should sing,
in silence.
So that we could feel vibrations of New York's great times,
One more time....